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Tag Archives: Adrian Orr

On the 15 of August 2015 Dr Vacy Vlazna published an article detailing an event that had happened exactly one year earlier during a protest at the offices of the NZ Superfund (a public retirement fund):
“…[C]oncerned young protesters [had] chained themselves in the NZSF office (Auckland) demanding that the NZSF immediately divest from Israel Chemicals (ICL) – a supplier of lethal white phosphorus to the US army for the manufacture of munitions sold back to Israel to barrage fire and death on Gaza.
In response to spokesperson Nadia Abu-Shanab’s passionate urging for divestment, Adrian Orr’s smug retort was,
‘Do you brush your teeth? ( Nadia: ‘Sorry?’) ‘Do you brush your teeth? White phosphorus is used in many places.’”
The speaker, Adrian Orr, is a very well paid executive. His smarmy attitude became even more apparent later: “Nadia then goes on to say, ‘Palestinians have actually identified the company’ and Orr butts in with appalling callous flippancy, ‘I can identify lots of companies that annoy me in life.’”

The article ended with a call to action:
“Ask folk to write to NZ SuperFund CEO Adrian Orr at enquiries@nzsuperfund.co.nz and Cc john.key@national.org.nz
with just two sentences:Adrian OrrCEO, NZ SuperfundBrush your teeth with white phosphorus or divest from Israel Chemicals!No war crimes investment in my name.
…and click resend every morning to maintain the rage and principle.”
Everyone who reads this wherever you are in the world should do exactly that. I set out to do exactly that, but my restless fingers decided to do something a bit more elaborate.
By the request of a reader I have decided to gather together all of my love letters to Adrian Orr. Please respect the fact that I am opening my innermost intimate naked self to your probing gaze.

Re: Humble Apologies
To Adrian Orr,
In my email yesterday I fear that I may have implied that you were a fatuous overpaid moral midget. On reflection, however, I think I see your point. You were highlighting the “dual use” of chemicals that can have beneficial effects. It has made me reassess my whole stance on the people who made Zyklon-B. People forget that although more than a million died slow agonising deaths in giant gas chambers poisoned with Zyklon-B, it was also used to delouse clothing. By ridding the clothing of these pests, many people will have be saved from irritation. That is the thing about something like white phosphorus, we get on our moral high horse about people dying in terror and agony or being maimed, yet life is never just a matter of black-and-white like that.
Thank you for opening my eyes.
Yours gratefully,
Kieran Kelly

Re: I am Hurt
To Adrian Orr,
I must say that I am a little hurt and upset that you haven’t acknowledged the sincere apology that I addressed to you yesterday. It hurts because I look up to people like you. Some might say that you are a vacuous apparatchik who will say any old moronic thing – such as implying that white phosphorous is used in toothpaste – in order to justify the unjustifiable. But I know that is not the real you at all. I mean, what sort of world would it be if we paid $800,000 per annum to an utter imbecile? That would be completely unthinkable.
Anyway, I just wanted you to know that your disregard is hurtful, but I can rise above that. I actually have some news. This news involves you, but I’m not quite ready to divulge all just yet. Hopefully I can let the cat out of the bag tomorrow, and I assure you that you will be the first to know all about it.
Yours Sadly but with a Hint of Optimistic Anticipation,
Kieran Kelly.

Re: Exciting New Project
To Adrian Orr,
I notice that you still haven’t responded to my emails. Was it something I said? I really would appreciate it if you contacted me. I have something very important to discuss and it may be to your advantage.
In fact, I am struggling to contain my excitement here, because you have given me a gift more precious than you could ever hope to understand – the gift of inspiration. You see, it is entirely thanks to you that I have nailed it. I have come up with a concept for a new product that will take the world by storm – Willy Pete Toothpaste®!!!
This product will literally set the world alight one bathroom at a time, and I owe all of the credit to you.
I think I should point out here that when I said that this news would be to your advantage I didn’t want to suggest that my gratitude would extend to sharing profits, but I thought you might get a spiritual boost from knowing how inspiring you are and that is worth more than mere money.
What I am prepared to give you, though, is a complementary sample tube. All I need to do is find a material that can contain the white phosphorous paste and still be flexible enough to squeeze. As it stands the product has a tendency to ignite and burn right through flesh and into the bone itself. It also produces a cloud of fine particles that stays in a type of dehydrated gaseous suspension that will sear people’s eyeballs and burn people from the inside out when inhaled. It’s a real bummer, actually.
Yours in Excitation,
Kieran Kelly

Re: Please Help Me
To Adrian Orr,
I wouldn’t normally dare to ask this, but I am desperate. I really really really need your help.
As you know I have begun work on my exciting new product Willy Pete Toothpaste® but I keep hitting roadblocks. I know that being an entrepreneur means that I must take the good with the bad, but I am getting near breaking point. No matter how hard I try to make a nice sanitary product out of white phosphorous it still remains a chemical that kills, maims and poisons. The fact that it also brightens and whitens just seems a little insignificant to someone dying in fear and agony.
I realise that you are not a chemist but it would be a real help to me to just know how you mentally sanitise white phosphorous. For you, it is apparently easy to ignore all of that whole killing side of things. If we could just harness that sort of attitude – if only for marketing and quality control – it might just save the enterprise.
I am desperate here. I have always thought of you as the Jedi Master, while I am your humble Padawan. In that vein I know you will not mind if I beg you: Help me Obi Wan, you’re my only hope.
Yours Anxiously,
Kieran Kelly.

Re: Responses to Mr Orr’s Questions
To Adrian Orr,
I have not yet heard back from you and I am aware that you are probably very busy. I really would appreciate your input, but I know you must have questions of your own. I cannot promise to address all of your concerns but I think that these responses might answer your most urgent needs.
1. Yes, but not for religious reasons. At the time the procedure was often performed as a hygiene measure.
2. No Police record – just a solo album by Sting.
3. World peace and an end to all hunger – JK, ;-) No, really I would ensure greater stability and a single lasting final solution to the problem of overpopulation.
4. The death penalty, with no exceptions of coming from “broken homes” or any of that boohoo poor crim nonsense.
5. Some of my best friends are Maoris.
6. It is a business like any other and it is not appropriate for government to interfere with the market for alleged “moral” reasons.
You can see that I really am on the same page as you. You can trust me, so please write back!
Yours Transparently,
Kieran Kelly.

Re: Some Clarifications
To Adrian Orr,
I must apologise if my last email left you somewhat perplexed. If you are wondering why I wrote JK, it was not in reference to John Key, as in “FJK”. Not that I don’t want to mention John Key. He is a wonderful role model – a humble Kiwi who made it big at Merrill Lynch but rather than just looking after himself and his money he came back to give something back to our country by being our Prime Minister. But, though John Key is seldom far from my mind, or heart, in this instance JK stands for “just kidding”. And the punctuation that followed “;-)” is meant to represent a wink – letting you know that I didn’t actually mean what I said, in fact quite the opposite.
I have also been told that my choice of words was somewhat unfortunate. Apparently suggesting that there should be a “final solution” to global overpopulation sounds potentially harsh. I know from the way you responded to protesters concerned about the issues of horrific weaponry being used on our fellow human beings that you are like me. People like us could never suggest that harsh measures will be necessary to deal with excess population ;-) I am not one of those that believes that it is inevitable that the weaker members of our species must die for the greater good of all ;-) I am sure that overpopulation on a planet of finite resources will be solved by a coming together of all peoples in multicultural harmony ;-) And I definitely don’t think that poor people, who all seem to insist on breeding like rabbits, have only themselves to blame if they end up starving to death after they have poached all the game animals ;-)
I think you can appreciate the depth of my feelings about this.
Yours Resolutely,
Kieran Kelly

Re: Bloody Hippies!
To Adrian Orr,
I know that you were once like me – burning to make the world a better place and earn lots of money doing it. And what better place to do that than in the finance sector where the most ethical and the most productive activities of the entire human species are conducted. Yet, despite the fact that banks are more beneficent than any charity, they pay extremely high salaries.
But apparently all of these ridiculous hippie do-gooders are just too stupid to know that they can do more good in the finance sector than they can do with silly sit-ins (which only stop smarter and better people from doing the real work of making the world a better place) and they could earn a bloody good living at the same time. Not that any of them could handle a real job anyway, but I think we can agree that they should just bugger off and die somewhere.
These idiots don’t understand that you do the real work of making the world a better place and, quite frankly, it makes me wild that they have the gall to imply otherwise. Who do they think they are? That is why it was such a classic moment when you shot down that stupid blathering on about white phosphorous. That protester was lucky to get away with just being made a fool of. The day will come soon when you won’t have to put up with that protest nonsense. It will be like America and you, in your position, won’t even have to say a word. You can even pretend to be all supportive and say “let them speak,” but a big guard will say “sorry sir, I have my orders”. Then the hippie will be freaking out saying “Don’t tase me bro.” And then it’s ZAP! and you can go back to work doing real good.
What amazes me is that nobody makes these people protest, and they know it doesn’t do any good. They must want to get hurt, otherwise they’d just stay home and watch X-Factor like the normal plebs.
Yours Irately,
Kieran Kelly.

Re: From Far Beneath You
To Adrian Orr
I am very hurt by your continued refusal to respond to my emails, but I admire you for it. I know that if you acknowledged the time and effort I put into writing to you it would only be doing me harm. It would make me complacent and self-satisfied and it would destroy ambition and aspiration. I understand. For someone like you to stoop down to my level would be mollycoddling condescension. That is why, despite the frustration and pain, I revel in the fact that you respect me enough to ignore me.
To you my communications must be like those of a puny ant squeaking up at you. But your neglect drives me on, and one day I will be worthy of your attention. You see, I am still working on the Willy Pete Toothpaste®. I know that when I last wrote I had struck some obstacles, but the inspiration of knowing that you yourself embrace the idea of a toothpaste made from a chemical weapon gave me the faith required to continue. I know I am close to a breakthrough. I feel it in my bones. One day I will be able to hold my head up and look you in the eye. Perhaps we could play golf together, or maybe get some cocaine and hire some prostitutes.
Yours in Happy Anticipation,
Kieran Kelly.

Re: Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling!
To Adrian Orr,
Once again I must humbly beg you forgiveness. I realise that I have been less than forthcoming recently with details of this product development phase for Willy Pete Toothpaste®. I have simply been snowed under. But the results, I hope, will speak for themselves. Sadly, those results will have to wait for another day. For now it is hush-hush.
You will recall that I was having difficulty with product development. Having taken the inspiration from your tacit suggestion that white phosphorous can be used in toothpaste, I was having real difficulties with the fact that any product that contains white phosphorous as an ingredient is toxic. Then there was the additional volatility problem, which meant we couldn’t even get the stuff in tubes without it igniting. That brings me to the third problem, the tendency for the product to sear, maim and kill consumers.
Obviously in the case of a company like Israel Chemicals they actually want the end consumer to be maimed or killed, but that is quite a different business model. At this stage we envisage that our marketing and distribution would focus on the major supermarkets rather than shooting the product at screaming fleeing consumers. I don’t think that New Zealand is quite ready for that level of guerrilla marketing. Mind you, if you hear anything from JK (as in FJK, not “just kidding”) then just give us the nod. I don’t want to say too much, but just think “dual use” and I’ll leave it at that.
Yours Ready to Face All Contingencies,
Kieran Kelly

Re: Utopia is Just Around the Corner
To Adrian Orr
You will be glad to know that I have been working hard. You fired me up. You light the way. You are the wind beneath my wings. But as they say, a project like turning a cruel and obscene weapon into a trusted household product is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration and I am dripping wet now.
I know that you’ll think I’m being a tease, but I’m going to save the best news until later. I want to see if I can’t just string you on a little longer before the big pay-off. Suffice it to say that things are now progressing nicely. What I am prepared to let you in on is our brand new slogan for Willy Pete Toothpaste®.
Are you ready?
Wait for it…
The slogan is…Feel the Burn!
Isn’t that great? The thing I love best about that slogan is that it has that Idiocracy factor. Rather than working on different levels, it doesn’t work on any level but it doesn’t matter. You know that film Idiocracy? There’s a great scene where everyone is starving because because the crops are dying. The crops are dying because they are being watered with sports drink. They are being watered with sports drink because it has electrolytes and the people know electrolytes are good because TV tells them so. Electrolytes are a selling point so they must always be good. It is like Newspeak in George Orwell’s 1984 where words are replaced with just “good” or “bad” so you don’t need to bother with context or nuance.
I don’t mind telling you that when Idiocracy came out some of my friends in marketing said we would never end up like that. I told them at the time that they were being negative, and I think it is safe to say that I was right. Look at Donald Trump.
Idiocracy is just round the corner and that is the inspiration for Willy Pete Toothpaste® and that is the inspiration for the slogan – Feel the Burn!

Once again I have you to thank, because when I saw you trying to confuse and humiliate a protester by this left-field out-of-the-box notion that white phosphorous could be used in toothpaste I was immediately reminded of O’Brien from 1984. If you recall, there is a point where Winston Smith is struggling with the way that O’Brien combines a great facility of mind at one point and a subhuman stupidity and obtuseness at others. Of course, by the end Smith understands the truth. When you are truly powerful there is no such thing as being stupid; there is no such thing as being wrong.
Hail to Thee, Oh Mighty One,
Kieran Kelly

Re: Why Do I Love You So?
To Adrian Orr,
I think that I have made it absolutely clear how much I admire you, but if I was to be honest I also hate you. I hate the fact that you came from a humble background. I can’t help it if my parents were intelligent. I would love to have been raised by a junkie single-mum sucking at the government teat just so I could prove that I was made for better things.
What makes me most jealous, though, is the fact that you can say things that I can’t. People like you don’t have to mince words about society’s losers. You are the Novus Homo – the New Man – like the renowned Cicero. He was the greatest defender of a system that was basically a meritocracy – well, it was certainly better than letting the stinking mob spread chaos and destroy all that was great about Rome. I see you in that light, as a type of neo-Optimate, but instead of defending Patrician power you are defending something even more noble – the power of the market.
When you finally lost your cool with the pro-Palestine protesters and sneered. “I can identify lots of companies that annoy me in life”, you were actually making a very principled point. I know it came across a bit like you were just being an arrogant arsehole, but the fact is that we can’t attack successful companies just because we don’t like them. Everything that is great and good about our society comes from the success of companies whose very success comes from supplying demand. We can’t pick and choose what we personally like instead of heeding market demand because, as Friedrich Hayek points out, that is the Road to Serfdom. Some people might have some sort of political view about creating munitions that incinerate people, but if there is a market demand we can’t ignore it. If people are willing to spend real money to burn other people, then denying them would be very distorting and dangerous. In fact, Hayek says that if we do that we will all end up as slaves living in a Totalitarian nightmare eating algae and wearing unisex overalls. I can’t quite remember his exact argument, but he was a respected economist and Thatcher loved his book so it is definitely real economics and not a lunatic tract for moronic ideologues.
Peace. Out.
Kieran Kelly
P.S. Of course, our own JK is another Novus Homo, isn’t he? However, I must admit I don’t really see him as being in the mold of the great Cicero. He has the passion, but not the diction. It does make me think of another Roman orator though – Cato the Elder. He is still remembered today for earnestly crying out “Carthago delenda est!” whenever he could get away with it. I reckon that if the Right Honourable Member himself is concerned with his legacy he should take a page from Cato. Instead of fussing around with this flag nonsense he should make it his unerring habit to end his every utterance in parliament by yelling “Get some guts!” That way, he would definitely be assured of a place in the history books. He would probably get on John Oliver’s show again too, and that exposure is great for brand “New Zealand”.

Re: And another thing…
To Adrian Orr
And the other thing about you bootstrapped peasants is that you have a lot of privileges that are not available to people like me. As I said, I can’t help the fact that my parents were not stupid losers working as toilet cleaners, or stablehands, or whatever it is that feeble-minded plebs can manage without chopping their own hands off. (Incidentally why do we have to pay ACC levies to compensate those who are too stupid to do menial tasks without mutilating themselves? Why do people seem unable to grasp the fact that this creates incentives for people to maim themselves? Has this world gone completely mad?)
I give you full credit for pulling yourself from the festering swamp of drooling inbreds that we know fondly as the “Great Unwashed”. Bravo, and all that, but now that you have scaled to the heights of fully-evolved sapience (and hopefully kicked the habit of grooming your relatives looking for juicy lice to eat); now that you are arrivé, as it were, you have that great privilege that I mentioned in my earlier missive. Your lowly origins mean that you can speak your mind where I can not.
For me life is a minefield. There are so many things on which I cannot voice an honest opinion without being accused of being worse than Hitler, and that is only the half of it! I cannot even point out simple matters of fact without being accused of being a privileged rich white man. Talk about ad hominem album!
That is why I was frustrated watching you talk to those screeching busybodies that were trespassing in your office building. We both know that they don’t really give a toss about the Hamas-loving hummous-eaters they claim to care about. They are just doing this to pad their resumés with “activism” so they can get into lefty politics and then hop aboard the UN gravy train like Aunty Helen. But these Arabs, these so-called “Palestinians”, in Gaza are not like Giant Pandas or Sirocco the Kakapo. People want to save cuddly nice charismatic deserving creatures, but you could have completely queered their sales pitch by telling some home truths about the so-called human beings whom they paint as being victims.
Did you know, for example, that 40% of the Gazans who can work don’t even have a job! Even most of those who do have a job take handouts from UN and NGO “benefactors”. Imagine that: a whole cramped little territory of hundreds of thousands of bludgers sticking their hands out. (That is what we will have here in our own country if we keep rewarding people for sitting on their arses and being poor). And half of the houses in Gaza are rubble, but even though they don’t have any jobs they still don’t rebuild them! They just sit around waiting for someone else to build everything for them. And with your humble background you can say this sort of thing. You can say, and it is just a simple fact, that we cannot support these people forever. The kindest thing is to just let nature take its course, or even to act to shorten the suffering of these miserable souls. It is pure undeniable fact, but when I say it, people call me a monster. I don’t think they understand how much that hurts my feelings.
Live Long and Prosper,
Kieran Kelly.